事情源自于今年七月，CNET的一篇题为"Google balances privacy, reach"的文章公布了Google的CEO Eric Schmidt的大量私人资料，包括收入状况、他的妻子、他的业余爱好等，而这些资料全部是从Google搜索得来的，只花了不到三十分钟——尽管Eric Schmidt在他的个人主页上并没有公开这些信息——这说明Eric未必愿意让太多人知道这些事。CNET的文章因此对Google搜索导致个人隐私被侵犯表示忧虑——如果Google挖掘到了这些数据，而不怀好意者又加以利用。
CNET的文章无可厚非，但Google很快做出反应，决定封杀CNET一年（"Google representatives have instituted a policy of not talking with CNET News reporters until July 2006 in response to privacy issues raised by a previous story"）。Google的这一举动招到了广泛的质疑（1,2,3,4,5）。
Rob Enderle认为，"they (Google) were increasingly behaving as if they were the center of the universe"，"companies, particularly those that grow very quickly, can lose track of their ethics and, by placing their needs in front of all others, move from being widely admired to widely despised"。